Top 5 Facts About March Madness

It’s “Fun Facts Friday” and in celebration of “Basketball Madness” we wanted to share these cool facts about March Madness!

#1: The tournament itself has been around since 1939. Started in Illinois, this annual tournament of high school boy’s teams emerged officially in 1908 and by the late 1930s had over 900 schools competing statewide.

#2: Henry V. Porter (former teacher, coach and assistant executive secretary of the Illinois High School association) invented the term. Porter published an essay named March Madness in 1939 and in 1942 used the phrase in a poem, Basketball Ides of March. In 1977 the Illinois HSA published a book about its tournament titled March Madness. The term stuck, especially in Illinois, and became known by everyone. http://www.basketball.org/march-madness-history/ The term is a registered trademark held by the NCAA and the Illinois High School Association.

#3: The first NCAA Championship Basketball Tournament was won by the University of Oregon Ducks. Glen Rice of Georgia University holds the distinction of scoring the most number of points in March Madness. In 1989, he scored 184 points among which 27 came from three pointers. He played 6 matches in the tournament. Shaquille O’Neal set an NCAA record by blocking 11 shots in one game for LSU in 1989. http://dynamomagazine.com/?p=2600